Description:
China is a site for the evolution, not only of Chinese nationalism, but the nationalism of various non-Han ethnic groups. During the 20th century, these ethnic groups constructed and expressed their own identities and nationalism through interaction with one another and with outside influences. This interdisciplinary anthology contains nine original works that pluralize our understanding of nationalism in China by illustrating the various intellectual strains of China's nationalist discourse, the dichotomy between the political authorities' and grass roots' experiences, and the nationalizing efforts by various ethnic and political groups along China's inland and maritime frontiers.
First, contributors explore the controversy surrounding the contested issue of China's national and international identity from pre-modern times to the present. Next, the authors examine China's nationalist encounters with foreign influences such as U.S. Marines in Shandong, Soviet experts in Manchuria, and recent friction between the United States and the PRC. Finally, essays expand beyond the ethnographic regions of the Han-Chinese and the political domain of the PRC to discuss the odyssey of Taiwan's nationalism in both a political and a cultural sense. Many selections are based on newly declassified archival materials.Brief description: Xiaoyuan Liu is professor of history at Iowa State University, US and has a Zijiang Professorship at East China Normal University. He has worked on the issue of modern China's territories and ethnic frontiers for more than a decade. He is the author of Reins of Liberation: An Entangled History of Mongolian Independence, Chinese Territoriality, and Great Power Hegemony, 1911 - 1950 (Stanford UP, 2006), and Frontier Passages: Ethnopolitics and the Rise of Chinese Communism (Stanford UP, 2004). He is a leading scholar in the field of East Asian international history and a pioneer historian who provides fresh paradigms and opens new grounds.
Review Quotes: "[f]ine scholarship that contributes to a deeper understanding of the complex phenomena associated with Chinese nationalism."-Journal of Chinese Political Science